One important issue our nation must confront is the declining interest
in computer science among high school students. Interest in majoring in
computer science among incoming college freshmen dropped approximately
60 percent between 2000 and 2004, according to a Computing Research Association
study published in May 2005. Additionally, according to the National Center
for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT), the existing educational
policy of election rarely requires computing in secondary school, resulting
in students that have a narrow and inaccurate view of what computer science
and information technology study involves, what careers are possible,
or how students can make an impact on society by becoming a computer scientist.
With some experts projecting the addition of 1.5 million computer and
information technology jobs to the U.S. workforce by 2012, the results
of this trend could prove catastrophic to our nation's technological leadership
and economic infrastructure.

Carnegie Mellon University is addressing this critical decline in interest
in computer science at the high school level by working on classroom solutions
that will result in a reversal of this trend.

The Computer Science for High Schools (CS4HS) program at Carnegie
Mellon is running a 3-day summer workshop to disseminate curriculum modules
that high school AP computer science instructors can implement in the
classroom that provide students with an exposure to the versatility and
applicability of the programming skills they have learned throughout the
school year. Educators can use the modules from the workshop to show students
that computer science is much more than computer programming.

Faculty from the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science will participate
in the CS4HS workshop and together with computer science leaders from
industry provide three days of instruction to teachers, assisting them
in the development of additional curriculum that will expose students
to the broad and ubiquitous nature of the field. Topics will include robotics,
computational biology, internet search strategies and computational thinking.
The summer workshop will also offer panel discussions featuring nationally
recognized leaders in computer science education that will examine the
latest trends in computer science pedagogy, their potential applications
in the high school environment, and strategies to increase participation
in computer science by women and underrepresented minorities.